identifying plants

This is what the back garden looks like right now. What you can't see is the large pile of construction debris that is still waiting to be taken to the transfer station; I decided that no one really needs to see that.

We have a bit of lawn. I don't think that will change. Croquet requires a wee bit of lawn, and I like croquet.

Supposedly the back of the shed at the top of the garden is utterly hidden by a wall of green in the summer. Ivy? Morning glories? Something else? Who knows?

On the right are what I am fairly sure are rose bushes. I don't know what kind, but I was told there's a small bit of rose garden in this yard and that's the only likely shrubbery. On the left, clinging to the shed, is other shrubbery; definitely not roses but otherwise I have no clue.


Right next to the shed is what I am almost certain is rhubarb. The leaves are the right shape and the red tinge is unmistakable. The overall size is a bit small, but that makes sense if they're growing from roots after the winter.

Then there is this:


I have no idea. It's definitely not grass (at least, not the same grass as on the lawn). I initially thought chives, because they tend to come in much earlier in the spring than other plants and these have been around for something like two weeks now. But I don't think that's it.

It's kind of everywhere, though. Nooks and crannies.


I think the lighter shoots may be daylilies or something similar, and I'm almost certain that there are a few tulips in there (there's a clump, in the picture, that looks suspiciously like it), but ... oh, who knows.

Meanwhile, when I got home from work last night, I did a quick inspection of the leaves in the front yard and decided that the little tiny tree was a very young oak.

This morning, in the clearer light of day, I decided that that was utterly idiotic and that the leaves most likely came from the big giant oak tree that lives right across the street.

Which is to say, I have no idea. I know; all I have to do is wait until the buds bloom and then I'll know. But — well, since when was I ever good at waiting?

does it count as early adoption if it's a sofa, not a computer?

No photographs today because it was so wet and dreary yesterday; everything came out grey. But everything is moving apace! We still don't have a full bathroom yet but we have almost all of the ingredients — the holdup is the grout, which needs 48 hours to cure before we can seal it and caulk up the rest. (I am pretending I know what all of these words mean.)

We do, however, have a sofa! Specifically, this sofa. I love it, and not just because we are the only people in all of Toronto own this sofa (so far). It's part of West Elm's new collection, which they just put in stores before this weekend. They had one in stock, and then we took it away. The salesgirl and cashier were both delighted and tickled that it was bought so soon.

It's fabulous, though. I really didn't think we were going to be able to find anything small enough for our space, and this is just perfect. The cats love it, too. I know this because I lost them for an entire afternoon yesterday, and found them both curled up on the sofa. On opposite corners, of course.

Garden Update:

The African violet is still alive! That's a whole week, then. I have to say that I obsess over it a little. It's sort of become my talisman — if I can keep this thing alive, then I can garden. Maybe. The garden is starting to bud, actually, all these tender shoots of bright green. I have no idea what they are. They may, for all I know, be weeds. The previous owner assured me that the garden is mostly wild flowers and requires no maintenance whatsoever, but everything I've read so far indicates that non-maintenance leads to ... well. A garden full of things that end in -weed: milkweed, pokeweed, smartweed. I am reasonably sure that I don't yet have bindweed, but it may only be a matter of time.

I am really getting into this whole "owning a house" thing

Look! New books (and a plant)!


Someone gave me an African violet last weekend, and now I think I should garden. Outside. So of course I had to have books that will tell me how to do it. Have I mentioned that I've never had a backyard before, never mind gardened? And that I kill African violets — the easiest houseplant ever — repeatedly, inadvertently, and often with very little remorse?

(This one is still alive. It's been four days, and I'm very proud. I did managed to keep a calla lily alive for a whole two months, once. Then I accidentally left it behind in my beautifully sunny apartment, with no water or air conditioning, for three weeks and in the middle of a hot June, and that was the end of that.)

a perfect(ly exhausting) weekend

The weekend previous to last, I started unpacking my books.


We were sort of at an impasse in terms of packing: most of the kitchen was done, but some things had to wait until we unpacked the living/dining room, because there was no room in the kitchen. But we couldn't unpack the living/dining room because of all the boxes, and the boxes had nowhere to go because inside the boxes were books, and the books were to go on bookshelves that had not been put in place because the walls were blocked by boxes. Of books.

In theory this could be solved by moving the majority of the books upstairs, to where they belonged, but the sunroom-cum-library was full of tools and the den (through which one had to go before reaching the sunroom) was still in the process of being painted.

So we did more Towers of Hanoi maneuvres and managed to get the two bookshelves flanking the fireplace up, and I unpacked that, but it was difficult because it turns out I have a lot of books (no, really?), and it's hard to corral sets of things when you don't know where said sets are. And while it seemed like I had done a reasonable job — at the beginning, anyway — of labelling my boxes, I had somehow thought that labelling a box full of English and World Literature anthologies and Agatha Christie novels "Books. EngLit (mostly)" would be helpful, and ... it's really not. (Don't even get me started on the ones that say, simply, "Books." Books? Really?)

Anyway, much as I love unpacking books (and I really, really do), the bathroom last week was much more exciting.


But this weekend, Pierre finished painting the den, above, and he helped me organize the tools and clean up in the sunroom, and so we hauled the very heavy boxes of Ikea upstairs and I built The Library:

View from the right of the door
View from the left of the door
There are seven bookshelves in there, plus the desk, all gloriously empty. Well, were. Some of them have books in them now, and it kind of looks like a lending library had the stomach flu and barfed all over the room. In a good way.

Meanwhile, I had a little bit of time and managed to get some adorable bowls from Anthropologie:

Yes, of course they're blue.
And Pierre had a little bit of time and got me a prezzie:


Which will explain why I will suddenly and inexplicably fall behind on unpacking this week. And possibly next. (Yes, it is beautiful. Also: squee.)

this washing hands business is complicated.

I want to show you something.


Okay, fine, the picture is kind of blurry and that is not the colour of the faucet, but the point remains. Do you see them? Water drops! In the sink! We have running water!

It took two trips to Home Depot, some judicious use of the saw and Dremel kit, a small panic and a certain creativity with plumbing elbows, but this morning I brushed my teeth in the bathroom, and that's just a great feeling.


The vanity we had initially ordered was smaller, and was nearly completely open on the bottom, like a table — it only had a shelf way at the very bottom. So we didn't really measure the openings fo the drain and water pipes when we redid that wall, because the vanity was so flexible. And then, of course, came the backorder thing and the substitution thing, and when the new, bigger vanity with the (surprise!) drawers arrived, we found that the P-trap ... didn't fit.

And P-traps are really important.


Yeah.

I assume it works because the drain is draining and the pipes are not leaking. That's good enough for me.
...
So I've decided that the light in the bathroom makes the automatic white balance on the DSLR give up and die. There's a CFL above the bathtub and halogens in the sconces on either side of the medicine cabinet, and somehow that means that I have three different wall colours in three different pictures. It is probably somewhere between the colour in the first picture (but less green) and the third (not baby blue). It is almost baby blue in the morning, which I find distressing, and then absolutely, adorably dusky at night, which I love.

And the faucet is not bronze at all; it's a sort of brushed pewter. (It should have been brushed nickel, but there was a small mix-up and ... whatever. Running water!)

So now there's a functional powder room! The shower is not yet functional, but that is only a matter of time (I think). It almost feels like a real house now!